Friday July 30, 2010

Open every day, dogs welcome: the new face of high street banking

Jerome Taylor
independent

The last time a high street bank opened in Britain, William Gladstone was Prime Minister, the police in London were striking and England was about to face Scotland in the first ever international football match.

The year, if you haven't guessed, was 1872, and the Co-operative had just opened its doors.
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Wednesday July 28, 2010

iPhone jailbreaking is legal, says US Library of Congress

Gregg Keizer
Computerworld US

Apple loses bid to criminalise hack

Apple lost its bid today to criminalize "jailbreaking," the practice of hacking an iPhone to install unauthorized apps on the smartphone, according to a decision by the US Copyright Office and the Library of Congress.
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Wednesday July 28, 2010

Found after 4,000 years: the lost wooden 'sister' of Stonehenge

David Keys
independent

Stonehenge had a previously unknown wooden "twin" just 900m to its north-west, according to remarkable new archaeological investigations.

Using the ground-penetrating equivalent of an X-ray, scientists have discovered what appears to have been a circle of massive timber obelisks, constructed more than 4,200 years ago.
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Wednesday July 28, 2010

Greenpeace shuts down 30 London BP stations 10

Jonathan Hiskes
Grist

Greenpeace U.K. shut down at least 30 BP stations in London on Tuesday in one of the more ballsy displays of civil disobedience against the energy giant. Activists fanned out to as many as 50 BP stations -- the exact number isn't clear -- and posted banners that said, "Closed: Moving beyond petroleum."

They also pulled safety switches that cut off fuel supplies at the stations -- and removed the switches so they couldn't be turned back on again.
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Wednesday July 28, 2010

BSOD hit BP oil rig's computer, says tech worker

Gregg Keizez
Computerworld US

Drilling control system on Deepwater Horizon was crippled by crash, says chief electrician

A computer that monitored drilling operations on the Deepwater Horizon had been freezing with a "blue screen of death" prior to the explosion that sank the oil rig last April, the chief electrician aboard testified Friday at a federal hearing.
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Wednesday July 28, 2010

80% of Post-Traumatic Stress Sufferers Lost Symptoms After Taking Ecstasy -- Study's Results

Craig K Comstock
AlterNet

Study's conclusion -- new drug could "offer sufferers a vital window with reduced fear responses where psychotherapy can take effect."

After MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, over 80% of sufferers from post traumatic stress disorder no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, as compared to only 25% in the control group. This study, just released, was conducted by Michael Mithoefer, M.D. (and his colleagues) and is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Psychopharmacology.
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Wednesday July 28, 2010

Are iPads, Smartphones and the Mobile Web Rewiring the Way We Think?

Gregory M. Lamb
The Christian Science Monitor

It took an offer to appear on a national TV show for Wade Warren to reluctantly give up what he calls his "technology" for a week.

That was the only way, his mother says, that he would ever pack his 2006 MacBook (with some recent upgrades, he'll tell you), his iPad tablet computer, and, most regretfully, his Nexus One smart phone into a cardboard box and watch them be hustled out the door of his room to a secret hiding place.
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Wednesday July 28, 2010

Lobbyists push use of deadly asbestos in developing nations

Jim Morris
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

A global network of lobby groups has spent nearly $100 million since the mid-1980s to preserve the international market for asbestos, a known carcinogen that's taken millions of lives and is banned or restricted in 52 countries, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found in a nine-month investigation.
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Tuesday July 27, 2010

Dutch Christian Group Backs Settlements

David Cronin
Inter Press News

Sandwiched between giant car and furniture stores on a motorway stop-off, a blue-and-white Star of David flag droops nonchalantly on a stifling summer's day. The factory-like building beside it could easily be missed by a traveller who blinks too soon, yet the work undertaken here in the Israel Centre is far from commonplace.

Its staff and management are dedicated not to the manufacturing of goods or to devising sales strategies but to drumming up support for a contentious political project: expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
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Tuesday July 27, 2010

Trouble brewing over 'tea of the gods'

Rachel Shields
Independent

Some claim kombucha fights cancer and arthritis, others say it's toxic. And it's about to arrive here

It is billed as the ultimate elixir of health and beauty, promising everything from lower blood pressure to smoother skin and a smaller waistline. Now kombucha tea, drink of gods and emperors, not to mention celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Halle Berry and Anna Paquin – is winning over Britain.
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Tuesday July 27, 2010

Hungary, the IMF and the EU

Jayati Ghosh
TripleCrisis.com

The more things change, the more they really do stay the same. For a while after the global crisis, we were told that the IMF had changed its position with respect to the strict and generally pro-cyclical measures it had been suggesting to countries in the throes of financial or balance of payments crisis.

Their economists openly accepted the need for fiscal stimuli and generally counter-cyclical macroeconomic policies to combat the recession.
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Tuesday July 27, 2010

Growing Shortages of Water Threaten China’s Development

christina larson
e360

With 20 percent of the world’s population but just 7 percent of its available freshwater, China faces serious water shortages as its economy booms and urbanization increases. The government is planning massive water diversion projects, but environmentalists say conservation — especially in the wasteful agricultural sector — is the key.

On a recent visit to the Gobi desert, which stretches across China’s western Gansu province, I came upon an unusual sign.
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Tuesday July 27, 2010

Citigroup says its iPhone app puts customers at risk

Dan Goodin
The Register

Warning: contents include account details

Citigroup is urging customers who use their iPhones for online banking to immediately upgrade to a new version of the application because a security weakness in the the old one puts them at risk.
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Tuesday July 27, 2010

I Report, Therefore I Am

Emily Badger
Miller-McCune

The case of Colombian journalist Hollman Morris, refused entry to the U.S. for a prestigious fellowship, suggests reporting on terrorists may be confused with being one.

Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department denied a visa to a foreign journalist selected for a yearlong Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. Hollman Morris, a well-known Colombian investigative reporter and documentary producer, was rebuffed on perplexing grounds.
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Tuesday July 27, 2010

Broadband speed gap widening, says Ofcom

Nick Clark
Independent

The gap between the broadband speeds advertised by internet service providers and the actual speeds customers receive has widened in the past year, the communications watchdog revealed yesterday.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Afghanistan war logs: Story behind biggest leak in intelligence history

Nick Davies
The Guardian

From US military computers to a cafe in Brussels, how thousands of classified papers found their way to online activists

US authorities have known for weeks that they have suffered a haemorrhage of secret information on a scale which makes even the leaking of the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam war look limited by comparison.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Google to release new versions of Chrome browser every six weeks

Gregg Keizer
Computerworld US

New release schedule to pick up pace of technology improvement

Google on Thursday said it will pick up Chrome's release pace by issuing a new version of the browser about every six weeks. According to Anthony Laforge, a Chrome program manager, the new schedule will put a a new "stable" version of the browser in users' hands roughly twice often as in the past.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Effort to plug well resumes as BP chief reportedly will exit

Manny Navarro
The Miami Herald

Amid reports that embattled BP chief executive Tony Hayward is negotiating his departure from the company, the effort to plug the leaky oil well in the Gulf of Mexico got back on track Sunday after it was delayed three days by Tropical Storm Bonnie.

Early in the day, a drill rig began reconnecting to the relief tunnel that will pump in mud and cement to seal the well for good.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Success of Retirement Show confirms power of the grey pound

Jerome Taylor
Independent

The climbing wall may be more than 40 feet high but Jan Prince is undeterred.

With an excited giggle she drops her handbag, slips into a safety harness, adjusts the straps on her helmet and puts her left foot on the first available foothold.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Focus Shifts to Organizers after Love Parade Stampede

Spiegel International

German officials confirmed on Sunday that 19 people died and 342 were injured during the mass panic that turned Saturday's Love Parade in Duisburg into a tragedy. Prosecutors have launched an investigation, with initial questions focusing on the organizers' crowd control strategy.

In 1989, the Love Parade started in Berlin as a peace demonstration. On Saturday, the festival, held in Germany's industrial Ruhr region since 2007, ended in disaster in Duisburg when a mass panic resulted in the deaths of 19 partygoers. A further 340 were injured in the stampede.
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Monday July 26, 2010

War on Terror or War of Terror?

Anthony DiMaggio
Counterpunch

Critical evidence from the British government and other sources suggest that the “War on Terror” has actually destabilized the Middle East and increased the terror threat throughout the globe.

The former head of Britain’s MI5 – Baroness Manningham-Buller – finds that the Iraq war has dramatically contributed to the growing terror danger as directed against the United Kingdom and its citizens.
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Monday July 26, 2010

'Soft robots' will use gut-wrenching propulsion method

Lewis Page
The register

Bowel-churning caterpillar boffinry breakthrough

American boffins say they are poised to invent a new class of shape-shifting "soft bodied robots" which will manoeuvre - perhaps inside the human body - by mimicking the literally gut-wrenching means by which certain species of creepy-crawly get about.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Poachers kill last female rhino in South African park for prized horn

Alex Duval Smith
The Observer

Record levels of poaching are endangering survival of rhinoceros in South Africa

South African wildlife experts are calling for urgent action against poachers after the last female rhinoceros in a popular game reserve near Johannesburg bled to death after having its horn hacked off.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Social web: The great tipping point test

Mark Buchanan
New Scientist

Every move you make, every twitter feed you update, somebody is watching you. You may not think twice about it, but if you use a social networking site, a cellphone or the internet regularly, you are leaving behind a clear digital trail that describes your behaviour, travel patterns, likes and dislikes, divulges who your friends are and reveals your mood and your opinions.

In short, it tells the world an awful lot about you.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Intel powers supersonic car

Maxwell Cooter
Techworld

Chips used in 1000mph record-breaking attempt

Here's something to gladden Jeremy Clarkson's heart: a 1000mph car. The opportunity to drive at supersonic speeds so quickly that there's no chance of being given a speeding ticket should get every speedfreak gasping with excitement.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Google Energy’s big green power purchase

Todd Woody
Grist

Google is officially in the green energy business.

The search giant announced on Tuesday that its Google Energy subsidiary signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with NextEra Energy. Google will begin buying 114 megawatts of electricity from an Iowa wind farm on July 30.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Some Hard Truths about America

Robert Parry
Consortium News

A hard truth about the U.S. economy is that corporations don’t need as many of us as workers but still need us as consumers. That dilemma helps explain why unemployment is stuck near 10 percent and why the economic recovery is stumbling toward a double dip.

The Washington Post reported recently that nonfinancial companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion – about one-fourth more than at the start of the recession – but won’t add personnel in part because they’re waiting for consumer demand to pick up, which isn’t happening because many Americans don’t have jobs or are afraid of losing theirs.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Waste Britain: UK's emissions could be cut at flick of a switch

Susie Mesure
Independent

Basic energy-saving measures could slash domestic carbon gases by up to a third

Simple measures such as turning electrical appliances off at the mains and installing energy-efficient lightbulbs could slash the UK's carbon dioxide emissions by about 40 megatonnes a year, or up to one third, according to new research which says that cutting electricity consumption is up to 60 per cent more effective than previously thought.
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Monday July 26, 2010

Nuclear fusion – what is it worth?

Steven Cowley
The Guardian

Experiments in fusion power have at last started to prove its viability. It would be foolish not to continue funding research

Fusion is arguably the perfect way to power the world. For one thing, there is enough fusion fuel to supply all of the world's energy needs for millions of years. Furthermore, it produces no environmentally damaging wastes, no carbon dioxide emissions and there could be no accidents that require evacuating the population surrounding a fusion power plant.
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Sunday July 25, 2010

Beekeepers add buzz to Japanese urban jungle

Agence France-Presse

Tokyo's Ginza district is usually abuzz with shoppers and office workers, but high above its skyscrapers nature-lovers have created a home for real busy bees -- the ones that make honey.

It's part of a project to bring a slice of natural life back to the center of the world's largest urban sprawl, a cityscape home to more than 30 million people that stretches far beyond the horizon.
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Sunday July 25, 2010

10 of the Con Artists' Favorite Ways to Scam the Elderly

Anneli Rufus
Alternet

The older we get, the more attractive we become to fraudsters. Preying on those breakdowns that come with age, from hearing loss to loneliness, criminals tailor special scams.

The older we get, the more attractive we become -- to fraudsters. Preying on those breakdowns that come with age, from hearing loss to loneliness, criminals tailor special scams with seniors in mind. Financial crimes against the elderly are rampant.
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Sunday July 25, 2010

Free Speech Takes a Hit, From Washington

Lawrence Davidson
Reader Supported News

I. The Present Situation

n June 21, 2010 the United States Supreme Court decided the case of Holder [the present Attorney General] vs. Humanitarian Law Project [HLP]. In what The New York Times called "its most significant ruling on free speech rights in terrorism cases" the Court upheld a federal law that defined just about any interaction with members of groups designated as "terrorist" by the US government as "material support" for criminal activities. Punishment can include a prison sentence of 15 years.

The HLP was attempting to teach members of the Turkish PKK (which is such a designated group) how to deal with some of their grievances through accepted United Nations channels.
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Thursday July 22, 2010

Defcon hackers challenged to social engineering contest

Joan Goodchild
CSO

Capture the flag extended to information gathering

A capture-the-flag-style competition slated to take place at Defcon later this month has raised eyebrows at a number of companies who are concerned they will be embarrassed or negatively impacted in some way. The challenge asks contestants to collect information about a "target" company, which they are assigned to by contest coordinators at the website social-engineer.org.
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Thursday July 22, 2010

MPs call for crackdown on pre-paid credit cards

Chris Williams
The Register

Child abusers getting away with it

The government has been urged by MPs to tighten controls on pre-paid credit cards, with claims they help child abusers avoid detection online.

Labour MP Geraint Davies said the cards were routinely used by paedophiles to hide their identities as he proposed a bill on Wednesday to force credit card companies to act.
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Thursday July 22, 2010

Greece and Wall Street

Walden Bello
Counterpunch

Cafés are full in Athens, and droves of tourists still visit the Parthenon and go island-hopping in the fabled Aegean. But beneath the summery surface, there is confusion, anger, and despair as this country plunges into its worst economic crisis in decades.

The global media has presented Greece, tiny Greece, as the epicenter of the second stage of the global financial crisis, much as it portrayed Wall Street as ground zero of the first stage.
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Thursday July 22, 2010

Fury over police 'culture of impunity'

Chris Greenwood
Press Association

A decision not to prosecute the officer who assaulted Ian Tomlinson is the latest example of a "culture of impunity" for police who break the law, it was claimed today.

Campaigners said the City of London coroner, pathologist Dr Freddy Patel, Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) and police all played a part in damaging the chances of bringing charges.
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Thursday July 22, 2010

AV referendum question is issued

James Tapsfield
Press Association

Details of the referendum on introducing the alternative vote (AV) electoral system were revealed by the Government today.

The public will be asked: "Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the 'alternative vote' system instead of the current 'first past the post' system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?"
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Thursday July 22, 2010

Ian Tomlinson death: police officer will not face criminal charges

Vikram Dodd and Paul Lewis
The Guardian

G20 riot officer filmed striking down newspaper seller will not face charges because of postmortem conflicts, CPS rules

The police officer caught on video during last year's G20 protests striking a man who later died will not face criminal charges, the Crown Prosecution Service announced today.
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Sunday July 18, 2010

Double Dividend: Make Money by Saving Nature

George Lakoff
t r u t h o u t

Saving nature is the central issue. Carbon fuels destroy nature. The Gulf Death Gusher is the most visible sign. But signs are everywhere.

Overall global warming increases hurricanes and floods; destroys habitats for plants, fish, birds and ground animals; spreads deserts; causes deadly waves; and destroys glaciers and our polar ice caps.
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Sunday July 18, 2010

The Drug Destruction of Mexico

Kristian Beadle
Miller-McCune

Arriving in Mexico’s mainland, our ecological blogger is brought face-to-face, almost literally, with Mexico’s cartel-driven politics.

Kristian Beadle underscores the effect drug cartels are having on Mexico’s politics, people and ultimately, its environment.

Location: Near the Zona Dorada in Mazatlán, the hub of tourist pleasure.
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The Drug Destruction of Mexico, Part II

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Sunday July 18, 2010

Argentina Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Sara Miller Llana
The Christian Science Monitor

Argentina today became the first country in Latin America to embrace same-sex marriage nationwide. Until now, only cities had legalized such rights, as did Mexico City in December.

After more than 14 hours of a heated debate and warring words, Argentina today became the first country in Latin America to embrace same-sex marriage nationwide.
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Sunday July 18, 2010

Poachers kill last female rhino in South Africa's Kruger park for prized horn

Alex Duval Smith
The Observer

Record levels of poaching is endangering the survival of white rhinoceros in South Africa

Fears are growing for the survival of the rhinoceros as the last female in the popular Krugersdorp game reserve near Johannesburg was killed, bleeding to death after having its horn hacked off by poachers.
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Sunday July 18, 2010

Paleoclimatologist studies sea levels in a desert

Seth Shulman
Grist

Exactly how much did the sea level rise three million years ago? Okay. Probably not a question you've asked yourself lately. But the question and, more importantly, its answer are significant.

They will help scientists understand how fast and how high our current sea levels are likely to rise as today's global warming trend melts the remaining ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica.
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Sunday July 18, 2010

Trillion Dollar Babies

Frida Berrigan
Counterpunch

What is a trillion? It is a big number for sure. The best explanation I have found for this mind-blowing figure is from children’s book author David Schwartz. “One million seconds comes out to be about 11½ days. A billion seconds is 32 years. And a trillion seconds is 32,000 years.”

What is a trillion dollars? What can you get for that much money?
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Sunday July 18, 2010

Thousands Protesting in Southern China Violently Suppressed

Chen Yilian
Epoch Times

A local aluminum company used violence to try to suppress a protest inspired by road construction that had damaged a nearby village, pollution, and local officials’ efforts to take away the villagers’ land and give it to the company.

Violence was met by violence, and three individuals employed by the company are reported to have died.
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Sunday July 18, 2010

Women with high-pitched voices go nuts over men with deep voices

Cian O'Luanaigh
The Guardian

It looks like women are more complicated than we thought, says Cian O'Luanaigh. Their preference for silver-tongued men with deep voices is dependent on the pitch of their own voices

It's not easy choosing a guy. Do you go for the big man with the deep voice, strong jawline and pugnacious streak, or the nice sensitive chap with the squeaky voice who'll take good care of you, but then run away when there's a fight in the offing?
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Sunday July 18, 2010

Johann Hari: Now Cameron jilts the environment

Johann Hari
Independent

He is opening the oceans off the Shetland Islands to deep-sea drilling, and promising Big Oil tax breaks to drill, baby, drill

Back when David Cameron was first trying to rebrand the Conservative Party, he touched down on the melting Arctic tundra to be photographed looking pensive and hugging huskies. He promised to lead "the greenest government ever". "Vote blue, go green," his posters said.
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Sunday July 18, 2010

Miracle-tech that could fix almost everything: Major advance

Lewis Page
The Register

Boffinry excitement in superconducting circles

Topflight boffins believe they may be on the track of the fabled room-temperature superconductor, a technology which - if achieved - promises to revolutionise various fields including hover trains, electric power, mighty dimension-portal atom smashers and even supercomputing.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

The Fall of Obama

Alexander Cockburn
Counterpunch

The man who seized the White House by fomenting a mood of irrational expectation is now facing the bitter price exacted by reality.

The reality is that there can be no “good” American president. It’s an impossible hand to play. Obama is close to being finished.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

Famous 'Invisible Gorilla' trick vid gets sequel

Lewis Page
The Register

Unexpected results of expecting unexpectedness

The trick-cyclist who created a famous video in which viewers routinely fail to notice the appearance of a man in a gorilla suit among a group of people passing basketballs has produced a sequel.
read full story

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Saturday July 17, 2010

Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Cognitive Decline

Ian Ritz
Epoch Times

The Alzheimer’s Association recently presented the results of multiple long-term studies that observe different behaviors associated with a reduction of symptoms of the disease.

The consumption of Vitamin D and antioxidant-heavy substances such as tea have been associated with positive brain activity in Alzheimer’s patients.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

Study Confirms Unconscious Linking of Blacks with Apes

Tom Jacobs
Miller-McCune

Is a white person more likely to spot a gorilla if he or she been thinking about black people? New research on the pervasiveness of unconscious prejudice suggests the answer is yes.

Two years ago, just after presidential candidate Barack Obama made his famous speech on race, we reported on disturbing evidence that white Americans unconsciously associate African Americans with apes.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

New Yorkers can't flee city's bed bugs – even in the Hamptons

David Usborne
Independent

It used to be the exploding population of rats in New York City that gave everyone the creeps, but today it's a different urban infestation that is gripping the imaginations – not to say sucking the blood – of its residents.

The city does sleep occasionally, which is when the bed bugs come out to play – lots and lots of them.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

Just What Is America Doing all Over the World?

Doug Bandow
Campaign For Liberty

In one of the most celebrated debate exchanges of the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP contender Rep. Ron Paul pointed out that Americans were hated because they were "over there" in Islamic lands. In fact, there is virtually no country on earth where American forces are not located.

Luckily, most people in most of those nations are not trying to kill Americans. In fact, many foreigners enjoy being protected at U. S. expense. Alas, Washington's desire to garrison most of the earth's surface helps explain why Uncle Sam is effectively bankrupt.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

Would you wear a garment brewed by bacteria?

Ashley Braun
Grist

Suzanne Lee is out to infect the fashion world with an idea that's been brewing for a while -- in a vat of bacteria, that is.

A Senior Research Fellow in the School of Fashion and Textiles in London, Lee is turning tubs of overly sweet green tea, microbes, and yeast into jackets, shirts, and dresses. It's called Biocouture and it's the ultimate in disposable fashion.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

A Mud-Loving, Iron-Lunged, Jelly-Eating Ecosystem Savior

Brandon Keim
Wired

Meet the bearded goby, a six-inch-long fish that lives in toxic mud, eats jellyfish, lasts for hours without oxygen, and has saved a coastal African ecosystem from a nightmare fate.

Over the last several decades, as other fish populations off the coast of the Namibia collapsed, jellyfish and bacteria populations exploded — a condition widely considered to be ecological an dead end, incapable of supporting rich webs of life.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

Trojan attacks credit cards of 15 US banks

John E Dunn
Techworld

Zeus spoofs Visa and MasterCard enrollment screen

The Zeus/Zbot banking Trojan is reported to be attacking the Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode verification systems introduced in recent years to stop old-style card not present (CNP) fraud.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

A Quiet Axis Forms Against Iran in the Middle East

Alexander Smoltczyk and Bernhard Zand
Spiegel International

Israel and the Arab states near the Persian Gulf recognize a common threat: the regime in Tehran. A regional diplomat has not even ruled out support by the Arab states for a military strike to end Iran's nuclear ambitions.

It is early in the morning on the wharfs in Sharjah, just below the Museum of Islamic Civilization, where the heavy wooden ships known as dhows are being loaded with cargo. Pakistani laborers hoist engine blocks, plasma monitors and mineral oil into the ships' holds. When asked where the dhows are headed, they say, matter-of-factly: "Iran."
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Saturday July 17, 2010

Apple iPhone 4 fix: a free 'bumper'

Charles Arthur
The Guardian

Firm offers free covers to owners and new buyers after signal problems sparked demands for recall

Apple is offering a free rubber "bumper" to owners of the iPhone 4 to head off criticism over problems with its signal reception but dismissed suggestions that the device should be recalled.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

US Army trials Iron Man super-trooper exoskeleton

Lewis Page
The register

HULC™: the ruggedisation is complete

A powered exoskeleton suit designed to let soldiers march and fight carrying huge loads of weaponry, equipment and armour is to enter testing with the US Army.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

Rats fed junk food pass down cancer risk through multiple generations of offspring

Ethan A. Huff
Natural News

A recent study out of Georgetown University Medical Center has concluded that what you eat can affect your children's and grandchildren's health, even if they eat healthy themselves.

Sonia de Assis and her colleagues observed that rats fed fatty, unhealthy food pass on an increased cancer risk to their children and grandchildren.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

Alcohol Increases Aggression; No Drinking Required

Tom Jacobs
Miller-McCune

French researchers confirm that alcohol-related cues increase aggressive thoughts and behaviors, even if one hasn’t actually imbibed.

Feeling aggressive and hostile toward the people around you? Perhaps you’ve had one too many.

Thoughts, that is. About alcohol.
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Saturday July 17, 2010

Maastricht marijuana is for locals only, rules EU

John Lichfield
Independent

No drugs please, you're foreigners.

The Dutch city of Maastricht is within its legal rights to ban tourists from buying marijuana in its coffee shops, a senior EU official has ruled.
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Friday July 16, 2010

It's a Jungle in There: Our Brains Are Not As Evolved As We Might Think

Louis Cozolino
Psychotherapy Networker

The human brain will probably continue to grow in size and capacities, barring the potential catastrophes that this amazing organ can create for the world and itself.

Anatomically, modern humans evolved from our chimplike ancestors around 100,000 years ago, although it took another 50,000 years for our brains and culture to evolve sufficiently to make us capable of language, planning, and creativity.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Facebook, web designer argue over 84% stake

Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld US

Does Zuckerberg really own Facebook? New York man files suit over alleged contract

A lawsuit filed against Facebook is raising the question of whether Mark Zuckerberg is the owner of the phenomenally popular social networking site.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Toxic Dispersants Near Gulf Harm Humans and Wildlife

Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld
t r u t h o u t

My eyes are burning as I type this. We've just returned from spending the day down in Barataria, located about an hour's drive south of New Orleans.

The community of fishermen is swimming in oil. Within minutes of arriving, our eyes begin to burn and we begin to feel dizzy from airborne chemicals from the oil and dispersant.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Streets ahead: A revolution in urban planning

Laura Spinney
Independent

Cities of the future won’t be filled with androids but with ‘silver citizens’. And that means a revolution in urban planning

With its dizzying skyline and unforgiving taxi-drivers, New York City might not strike you as the ideal place to grow old gracefully. Nevertheless, last month the city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, picked up a certificate declaring it to be the first member of a global network of age-friendly cities.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Catholics angry as church puts female ordination on par with sex abuse

John Hooper
The Guardian

Women's groups describe Vatican's decision on female ordination as 'appalling'

It was meant to be the document that put a lid on the clerical sex abuse scandals that have swept the Roman Catholic world. But instead of quelling fury from within and without the church, the Vatican stoked the anger of liberal Catholics and women's groups by including a provision in its revised decree that made the "attempted ordination" of women one of the gravest crimes in ecclesiastical law.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Michael Moore: Why I Had to Hire 9 Bodyguards After Winning an Oscar

Amy Goodman and Michael Moore
Democracy Now!

In a wide-ranging interview, Moore talks about his controversial career, taking over his local Democratic Party, and unloads on Obama's handling of the Afghan war.

Amy Goodman: In this Democracy Now special, we spend the hour with one of the most famous independent filmmakers in the world, Michael Moore. For the past twenty years, Michael has been one of the most politically active, provocative and successful documentary filmmakers in the business. His films include Roger and me; Bowling for Columbine for which he won the Academy Award, Fahrenheit 9/11, SiCkO ; and his latest, Capitalism: A Love Story. I began by asking Michael Moore why he first became a filmmaker.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Qualified, But Just Too Handsome

Tom Jacobs
Miller-McCune

New research finds that attractive people in the business world or academia may be at a disadvantage when they’re evaluated by a member of the same sex.

Good-looking people have it easier than the rest of us. Considerable research has come to that conclusion, including a 2009 study that found that personal attractiveness enhances one’s income prospects.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Tainted cereal exposes soggy food-safety system

Tom Philpott
Grist

On June 25, Kellogg's issued a "voluntary recall" of 28 million boxes of its breakfast cereals, including Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, and Honey Smacks.

The company revealed it had detected an "uncharacteristic off-flavor and smell coming from the liner in the package" of the suspect cereal and warned of "possible temporary symptoms, including nausea and diarrhea" from eating it.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Why Are We in Afghanistan? As Petraeus Takes Over, Could Success Be Worse Than Failure?

Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch.com

In triumphant testimony before a joint committee of Congress in which he was greeted on both sides of the aisle as a conquering hero, Gen. David Petraeus announced the withdrawal this month of the first 1,000 American troops from Afghanistan.
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Friday July 16, 2010

How the Sneaky Hands of the Big Banks Are Working Overtime to Rip You off

Zach Carter
AlterNet

The economy is crumbling and consumers are in trouble. So banks are hitting them with $38 billion a year in deceptive fees.

After living through the Great Financial Crash of 2008, just about everybody recognizes that megabanks screwed the economy hard and were rewarded with big bailouts, which further screwed over, well, everybody, in the name of banker bonuses.

But Big Finance has been waging its war on the middle class for decades, and many of its most destructive practices don't actually put the financial system in jeopardy. These tactics work because they are so effectively predatory.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Science explains, not describes

Sue Blackmore
The Guardian

The experience of consciousness seems incommunicable and ineffable. Yet science can hope to explain how it arises

When Andrew Brown first posed this week's question to me he asked "Can science describe everything?". My instant, unreflective reply was "No". He implied that this might be a less restrictive question than "Can science explain everything" and yet my instant reaction to this one was "Yes". I'd like to explore this curious difference.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Lib Dem peer proposes exemptions to live music licensing

OUT-LAW

A Liberal Democrat peer has revived a proposed law that would make it easier to host music events without breaking the law. The Live Music Bill, which previously stalled because of the general election, has had its first reading in the House of Lords.

The Bill proposes exempting venues from the need to have a licence to host live music events if the attendance is below 200 people. It also seeks to exempt from licensing the playing of unamplified music where no alcohol is served.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Google China search returns, but site is limited in features

Juan Carlos Perez
Techworld

Google.cn only allows product and music searches, as well as translations

Google's recent restoration of Google.cn may have helped the company secure a renewal of its Internet Content Provider (ICP) licence in China, but the search site provides precious few search services to users.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Threatening World Order: US and Israel Quietly Announce Plans to Reconstitute Their Nuclear Stockpiles

Anthony DiMaggio
t r u t h o u t

The world looks like it's about to become a more dangerous place. A recent report from Israel's newspaper Haaretz finds that the United States is moving forward with plans to strengthen Israel's nuclear weapons stockpile.

The report, exposed within the last few days, originated from Israel's Army Radio, which sent along a secret document chronicling the nuclear cooperation between US and Israeli leaders.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Government begins RIPA review

OUT-LAW.COM

Peeking at snooping laws

The Government will review the use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA), the law that governs state tapping of phone, email and internet use. The law will be looked at as part of a wider review of counter-terrorism laws.

Civil liberties campaigners criticised several anti-terrorism laws introduced by the last Labour Government as being restrictive of individual freedoms.
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Friday July 16, 2010

Is Apple losing its touch?

Stephen Foley
Independent

Crunch time for technology giant as public love affair with brand turns sour

Apple, the £150bn technology giant, is this morning preparing to confront the biggest public relations crisis in its history, amid technical problems afflicting its latest iPhone and a warning that "an emerging pattern of hubris" could wreck the public's love affair with the company.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

How Brokers Became Bookies

Ellen Brown
Counterpunch

“You all are the house, you're the bookie. [Your clients] are booking their bets with you. I don't know why we need to dress it up. It's a bet.”

- Senator Claire McCaskill, Senate Subcommittee investigating Goldman Sachs (Washington Post, April 27, 2010)

Ever since December 2008, the Federal Reserve has held short-term interest rates near zero. This was not only to try to stimulate the housing and credit markets but also to allow the federal government to increase its debt levels without increasing the interest tab picked up by the taxpayers.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

The Disappearing Intellectual in the Age of Economic Darwinism

Henry A. Giroux
t r u t h o u t

We live at a time that might be appropriately called the age of the disappearing intellectual, a disappearance that marks with disgrace a particularly dangerous period in American history.

While there are plenty of talking heads spewing lies, insults and nonsense in the various media, it would be wrong to suggest that these right-wing populist are intellectuals.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Wall Street Is Laundering Drug Money And Getting Away With It

Zach Carter
AlterNet

Too-big-to-fail is a much bigger problem than you thought.

We’ve all read damning accounts of the government saving banks from their risky subprime bets, but it turns out that the Wall Street privilege problem is far more deeply ingrained in the U.S. legal system than the simple bailouts witnessed in 2008.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Gorillas learn to play fair by playing tag

Michael Marshall
New Scientist

There's more to an innocent game of tag than meets the eye. When gorillas play the playground favourite, it teaches them a valuable life lesson about unfairness, social boundaries and retaliation.

That, at least, is the conclusion of the first study to observe the primates' reactions to inequity outside a controlled laboratory setting.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

A strong dose of regulation will keep the health food industry regular

Martin Robbins
The Guardian

In the long run, says Martin Robbins, both consumers and the health food industry will benefit from the high-fibre regulation introduced by the European Union

"Beans beans good for your heart, beans beans make you fart." So went the popular if admittedly unsophisticated playground rhyme we sang at Horndean Middle School some 18 years ago.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

I’m Happy as Long as I Make More Than You

Brad Wittwer
Miller-McCune

New research acknowledges that money doesn’t buy happiness all on its own purchasing power, but rather happiness comes indirectly from the higher status money provides.

One of the first rules taught in any introduction to microeconomics class is that an increase in consumption ability, otherwise known as income, increases utility, and utility is a measure of satisfaction. In English, more money equals more happiness.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

WMD claims were lies says former envoy

Nigel Morris
Independent

Britain was taken to war in Iraq on the basis of “lies”, scaremongering and deliberate exaggeration, a former UK diplomat told the Iraq inquiry.

Carne Ross claimed that Britain and the United States privately did not believe that Iraq's weapons programmes posed a “substantial threat” before launching the 2003 invasion.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

iPhone 4: Consumer Reports 'Can't Recommend' Apple's Latest Smartphone

Annie Wu
Epoch Times

The iPhone 4 is not recommended by Consumer Reports, the company said on Monday, citing problematic reception issues as the sole reason for their rejection of Apple’s latest smartphone.

Researchers at Consumers Union—the parent company of Consumer Reports—tested three iPhone 4's in a room that was “impervious to outside radio signals.”
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Better Than Facebook?

David Bollier
Yes!

Fed up with Facebook's commercialism, four NYU students have created an open source, peer-to-peer alternative: Diaspora.

We’ve known all along that Facebook was more of a commercial machine committed to corporate advertisers than a benign platform that respects individual users. The problem was, most of our friends and acquaintances were already on Facebook. The site has lots of cool features, and there was no serious alternative to migrate to.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Swiss Knives Out for Migrants

Ray Smith
Inter Press Service

The disputed 'black sheep' placards may soon return to Swiss streets. The country's Federal Council and parliament have validated a right-wing initiative calling for the automatic deportation of criminal foreigners.

Foreigners make up almost 22 per cent of the country's 7.8 million inhabitants. These include people of European origin. Campaigns against foreign residents have become regular to Switzerland.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

On World Population Day, take note: population isn’t the problem

Fred Pearce
Grist

A green myth is on the march. It wants to blame the world's overbreeding poor people for the planet's peril. It stinks. And on World Population Day, I encourage fellow environmentalists not to be seduced.

Some greens think all efforts to save the world are doomed unless we "do something" about continuing population growth. But this is nonsense. Worse, it is dangerous nonsense.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Prepping for Apocalypse: The Strange World of Survivalists

Sara Hussein
Agence France Presse

Some Americans see political upheaval and natural disasters as clear signs that civilization is doomed.

From the outside, Jerry Erwin's home in the northwestern US state of Oregon is a nondescript house with a manicured front lawn and little to differentiate it from those of his neighbors.

But tucked away out of sight in his backyard are the signs of his preparations for doomsday, a catastrophic societal collapse that Erwin, 45, now believes is likely within his lifetime.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Google App Inventor makes creating Android apps easy

Dan Nystedt
Techworld

The new Google program puts app creation in the hands of Android users

Google on Monday revealed a new software tool that lets just about anyone make apps for mobile phones that use its Android software. The beta version of the website for App Inventor for Android went live from Google Labs with a video showing how easy it is to make apps, including a number of ideas for apps people can make themselves.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Scientist predicts stem cell 'pharmacies'

John von Radowitz
Press Association

Stem cell "pharmacies" that dispense tissue therapies could be as common as chemist shops in 20 years' time, according to a top scientist.

Professor David Warburton, one of the world's leading experts on stem cells and regenerative medicine, said the era of stem cell technology was only just beginning.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Banks facing permanent tax on pay and profits – minister

Jill Treanor
The Guardian

Exclusive: City minister Mark Hoban urges bank chiefs to exercise voluntary restraint on bonuses

The government is considering a permanent tax on the pay and profits of banks, according to the City minister who urged the sector to demonstrate the "pay restraint" being demanded of workers in both the public and private sector.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Terahertz Detectors Could See Through Your Clothes From a Mile Away

Jess McNally
Wired

Someone may soon be able to tell what types material are in your pockets from tens, and possibly thousands, of feet away.

Using terahertz remote sensing, detectors could see through walls, clothing and packaging materials and immediately identify the unique terahertz waves of the materials contained inside, such as explosives or drugs.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball

Joe Bageant
Joe Bageant.com

Capitalism is dead, but we still dance with the corpse

As an Anglo European white guy from a very long line of white guys, I want to thank all the brown, black, yellow and red people for a marvelous three-century joy ride.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

GM crop ban may be lifted in EU

Leigh Phillips
The Guardian

Proposal to resolve 12-year deadlock would allow individual states to decide on what to cultivate or to continue restrictions

The European Union will take a huge stride tomorrow towards freeing up the production of GM crops when the European commission proposes allowing national governments to make up their own minds on whether to permit their cultivation.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Seven reasons BP would like to forget last weekend

Randy Rieland
Grist

It should have been a good weekend for BP. Its latest plan to staunch the geyser -- lowering a tighter cap over the spewing pipe -- is ahead of schedule, and its two relief wells, which could stop the gushing once and for all, remain on track to be ready in mid-August.

But, as we've come to learn over the past 81 days -- and counting -- BP reeks of bad karma
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Solar plane completes first night flight

Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld US

Plane stays aloft for 26 hours, reaches height of 28,000 feet

In a major triumph for alternative energy researchers and enthusiasts, an experimental, solar-powered plane Thursday successfully completed a 26-hour flight powered by 12,000 solar cells and sunlight-powered lithium batteries
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Behind Turkey and Israel's Not-So-Secret Meeting

Rannie Amiri
Counterpunch

Recriminatory words exchanged between Turkey and Israel over the latter’s May 31 assault on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla have given way to the pragmatism of national self-interest.

On June 30, ministers from the two countries “secretly” met in Brussels to attempt to smooth over differences and repair bilateral ties marred in the wake of the attack.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Did You Know Tar Balls Glow Orange Under UV Light?

Mac McClelland
Mother Jones

Rip Kirby's got the 365-nanometer UV flashlight and I've got the shovel. He's a grad student in the University of South Florida's geology department, and we're standing on Pensacola Beach in the middle of the night digging a hole so he can show me the layers of tar buried beneath new sand the tide has washed up.

Some of the tar mat is so thick that it's visible to the naked eye. Other traces of contamination are so subtle that they can only be seen with Kirby's ultraviolet light, which makes crude fluoresce an unnaturally bright orange.
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Wednesday July 14, 2010

Easy living: The truth about modern communes

Charlotte Philby
Independent

Today's communes are a far cry from the free-loving, dope-smoking hippy havens of the Sixties. But can they really solve the problems of the modern world?

It was on a summer's afternoon in 2005 that Paul Wimbush made his decision. He'd spent the day celebrating Lammas, the original Celtic harvest festival, with friends in a field in Pembrokeshire; as the sun began to fall, a group of them sat down to discuss the implications of a proposed local planning act known as Policy 52.
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Tuesday July 13, 2010

Self-Service: The Delicate Dance of Online Bragging

Evan Ratliff
Wired

A few years ago, I belonged to an informal group of freelance writers and editors who would assemble regularly to drink and talk shop. One evening, someone in our rotating cast brought along a new member, who began regaling us with tales of her editorial triumphs and financial success.

Apparently she never got the memo that our gatherings were outlets for complaint and commiseration. As the evening wore on, the rest of us adopted a logical, if immature, course of action: We all pretended to go home and then reconvened at another bar without her.
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Tuesday July 13, 2010

Locally Owned Wind Power: Turbines Give Farms a Second Wind

Melinda Burns
Miller-McCune

The financial crisis is a blessing in disguise for community wind power, an underserved sector of the burgeoning U.S. wind industry. And turbines are giving old farms a second wind.

Kent Madison, a third-generation farmer in eastern Oregon, used to cuss when the wind blew hard and kicked up dust and kept him from spraying his crops. But now, with 18 windmills on his farm, he sees dollars, not dust, every time the wind blows.
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Tuesday July 13, 2010

Icelandic Parliament Strengthens Protections for Journalists and Whistleblowers

Sam Knight
t r u t h o u t

The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative is the first major step in a push towards transparency.

On June 15th, Icelandic Parliamentarians unanimously approved a resolution that contains some of the strongest protection for freedom of speech and freedom of information in the world.
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Tuesday July 13, 2010

Baby brain growth mirrors changes from apes to humans

Physorg

A study undertaken to help scientists concerned with abnormal brain development in premature babies has serendipitously revealed evolution's imprint on the human brain.

Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that the human brain regions that grow the most during infancy and childhood are nearly identical to the brain regions with the most changes when human brains are compared to those of apes and monkeys.
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Tuesday July 13, 2010

The Price of a Bargain: The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization

Gordon Laird
Palgrave Macmillan

Most of us know that, at some level, cheap stuff comes with a price. But what does it mean to have discounting as the defining force within the whole economy?

They emerged from the darkness and gathered like pilgrims, lining up beneath floodlights in the parking lot. Well before midnight, the first shoppers had already settled into chairs and under blankets for the long, cold vigil that was being staged outside nearly every major discount outlet across America.
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Tuesday July 13, 2010

Bonobo Handshakes

Susan Block
Counterpunch

The “Make Love Not War” bonobos have a new friend. She’s an ape like them—a brilliant, beautiful, empathetic, courageous creature on the human branch of the primate family tree.

Her name is Vanessa Woods, and she has written a wonderful, ground-breaking new book called Bonobo Handshake, a must-read for anyone interested in primatology, anthropology, sex, love, war, peace or that greatest of mysteries we commonly call human nature.
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Tuesday July 13, 2010

China confirms Google licence renewal

Josh Halliday
The Guardian

Google, which has a 30% market share of Chinese search traffic, given renewal despite recent strained relations

China has renewed Google's licence to operate in the country, the search giant announced on Friday.
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Tuesday July 13, 2010

America's Tragic Descent into Empire

Tom Engelhardt
Haymarket Books

Engelhardt's new book, "The American Way of War," explores the U.S.'s jaw-dropping transformation into a global military empire.

The following is an excerpt from The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's by Tom Engelhardt (Haymarket, 2010).

"War is peace" was one of the memorable slogans on the facade of the Ministry of Truth, or Minitrue in "Newspeak," the language invented by George Orwell in 1948 for his dystopian novel 1984. Some sixty years later, a quarter century after Orwell's imagined future bit the dust, the phrase is, in a number of ways, eerily applicable to the United States.
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Tuesday July 13, 2010

Alcoholic Energy Drinks Promotes Underage Drinking, Schumer Says

Helena Zhu
Epoch Times

They may look like harmless nonalcoholic energy drinks, but new brands of trendy caffeinated alcoholic drinks now on the shelves in some markets are fooling many parents and law enforcement personnel.

The 24-ounce cans of Four Loko and Joose are decorated with flashy colors and funky designs that appeal to younger consumers.
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Tuesday July 13, 2010

Merkel's Rules for Bankruptcy

Christian Reiermann
Spiegel International

Fearing a lasting burden on taxpayers, the German government is preparing a set of insolvency rules for countries in the euro zone. It would require private investors to bear some of the financial burden and force the affected countries to give up some sovereignty. The plan is guaranteed to meet with resistance.

As a physicist and an avowed admirer of the Swabian housewife, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), is seeking to establish binding rules in the midst of the chaos of financial and monetary crises.
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Monday July 12, 2010

Coast Guard Blocks Out Media at the Gulf; Activists Demand Answers

Mike Ludwig
t r u t h o u t

Journalists and independent observers of the oil cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico could be fined up to $40,000 and be charged with a felony if they get too close to booms and oil cleanup areas, and activist group Seize BP wants to know how authorities can justify such a muzzle on independent information gatherers.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on behalf of Seize BP, demanding specific information on the US Coast Guard's justification for establishing 20-meter security zones around cleanup areas.
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Monday July 12, 2010

California’s photovoltaic push

Todd Woody
Grist

Amid the hullabaloo over government-chartered mortgage giants derailing the green financing program known as Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, the march toward distributed generation of renewable energy -- that is, generating electricity from decentralized sources such as rooftop solar panels or backyard wind turbines -- continues.

Case in point: The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) announced Wednesday that it had awarded contracts to San Francisco's Recurrent Energy to install 60 megawatts' worth of solar panels in the region surrounding California's state capital.
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Monday July 12, 2010

US Military Cyber Command logo code cracked

Gregg Keizer
Computerworld US

Cryptographic hash decodes as mission statement

A security researcher said on Thursday he was the first to crack the code embedded in the seal of the US Cyber Command (Cybercom), the group responsible for protecting the country's military networks from attack.
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Monday July 12, 2010

How to regulate climate control

Sophie Morris
Independent

Scientists are trying to regulate the weather with ambitious experiments that may even tackle global warming. Is this a great step forward – or will it simply let the worst polluters off the hook?

Given the chaos caused by erupting volcanoes this year, the idea of creating a fake eruption sounds like lunacy. Who would wish further mayhem on an already wayward weather system? Yet this is just one of a number of ideas for controlling the elements mooted by climate scientists as a solution to rising temperatures.
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Monday July 12, 2010

EU Banking System on the Brink

Mike Whitney
Counterpunch

The EU banking system is in big trouble. Many of the Union's largest banks are sitting on hundreds of billions of dodgy sovereign bonds and non performing real estate loans. But writing down their losses will deplete their capital and force them to restructure their debt.

So the banks are concealing their losses through accounting sleight-of-hand and by borrowing money from the European Central Bank. This has helped to hide the rot at the heart of the system.
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Monday July 12, 2010

It's not the end for stop and search

Jane Fae Ozimek
The register

Section 44 is dead, long live section...

Comment Fears were growing today that the latest attempts by Home Secretary Teresa May to put policing back on a more sensitive, acceptable footing may yet backfire.

In the Commons last Thursday she announced that she is ready to bring the UK back into line with Europe by revising the government's guidelines on terror stops and searches.
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Monday July 12, 2010

America's Deadliest Sweetener Betrays Millions, Then Hoodwinks You with Name Change

Dr. Joseph Mercola
AlterNet

Aspartame has been wreaking silent havoc with people's health for the past 30 years.

Aspartame is the most controversial food additive in history, and its approval for use in food was the most contested in FDA history. In the end, the artificial sweetener was approved, not on scientific grounds, but rather because of strong political and financial pressure.

After all, aspartame was previously listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent!
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Monday July 12, 2010

Oil found in Gulf crabs raises new food chain fears

Geoff Pender
Biloxi Sun Herald

University scientists have spotted the first indications oil is entering the Gulf seafood chain — in crab larvae — and one expert warns the effect on fisheries could last "years, probably not a matter of months" and affect many species.

Scientists with the University of Southern Mississippi and Tulane University in New Orleans have found droplets of oil in the larvae of blue crabs and fiddler crabs sampled from Louisiana to Pensacola, Fla.
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Monday July 12, 2010

Europe's fishing industry 'unsustainable' as stocks drop

David Adam
The Guardian

Today marks 'fish dependence day' – where our appetite for seafood means we have to deplete other countries' resources

Europeans are eating more fish while stocks in their own seas continue to deplete, according to a new analysis that highlights the unsustainable nature of the industry. A report from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) names today as the point at which Europe has nominally consumed all its own fish, and needs to bring in stocks from elsewhere.
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Monday July 12, 2010

Legal high 'NRG1' to be made Class B drug

Independent

The legal high naphyrone will be made a Class B drug and banned, the Government said today.

Marketed as NRG 1, naphyrone is similar to party drug mephedrone which was banned after being associated with a host of young revellers' deaths.

The move follows a recommendation by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) to outlaw the drug last week.
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Monday July 12, 2010

Germany officials launch legal action against Facebook

Maggie Shiels
BBC News

German officials have launched legal proceedings against Facebook for accessing and saving the personal data of people who do not use the site.

Facebook could face fines of tens of thousands of euros under privacy laws.

The social networking firm confirmed it had received a letter about the action.
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Monday July 12, 2010

Mitigating Annihilation

Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld
t r u t h o u t

From the air, the area north of Grand Isle, Louisiana, much of it around Barataria Bay, looks like scorched earth. This area has been and is heavily afflicted by BP's oil.

The so-called cleanup efforts, including laying out booms to supposedly prevent oil from destroying more marsh and killing more wildlife, are a farce.
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Monday July 12, 2010

Coalition cutting NHS jobs to deliver £20bn in cuts

Randeep Ramesh
The Guardian

The Royal College of Nursing reveals that 9,973 posts had been lost through recruitment freezes

Staff in the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Health trusts are cutting thousands of jobs to deliver £20bn of NHS "efficiencies" despite the coalition government's promises to protect frontline services, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) warns today.
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Monday July 12, 2010

Real People v. Corporate “People”: The Fight Is On

Doug Pibel
Yes!

The Supreme Court says corporations can spend as much money as they want on political advertising. Millions of Americans say they've had it.

In 2009, Riki Ott was on the road for 252 days educating people about the dangers of “corporate personhood.” That’s the legal doctrine that says corporations have constitutional rights, just like human beings. She mostly spoke in academic settings, and there was some interest in the idea, says Ott, but not much.
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Monday July 12, 2010

7 Outrageous Examples of Police Spying and Harrassment Toward Peaceful Activists

Joshua Holland
AlterNet

Law enforcement is using dubious justifications to spy on Americans based on nothing more than people's political beliefs.

According to a new report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), law enforcement agencies around the country have acted as diligent Thought Police, relying on dubious justifications to spy on Americans based on little more than their political beliefs (PDF).
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Saturday July 10, 2010

Owner reports cat burglar to police

Ben Mitchell
Press Association

The owners of a cat reported their pet to the police after it started stealing dozens of knickers and items of underwear from neighbouring gardens.

Peter and and Birgitt Weismantel adopted Oscar from the Cats Protection charity at Christmas.
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Saturday July 10, 2010

Flights diverted, delayed as UFO detected hovering

People's Daily

An unidentified flying object (UFO) disrupted air traffic over Zhejiang's provincial capital Hangzhou late on Wednesday, the municipal government said on Thursday.

Xiaoshan Airport was closed after the UFO was detected at around 9 pm, and some flights were rerouted to airports in the cities of Ningbo and Wuxi , said an airport spokesman, who declined to be named.
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Saturday July 10, 2010

Pfizer: The Drug Giant That Makes Bank from Drugs That Can Kill You

Martha Rosenberg
AlterNet

To say that Pfizer has been accused of wrongdoing is like saying BP had an oil spill.

The drug company Pfizer is best known for Lipitor, a drug that brings cholesterol down and Viagra, a drug that brings other things up.

But the "world's largest research-based pharmaceutical company" which sits between Goldman Sachs and Marathon Oil on the Fortune 500, is also closely associated with a seemingly never-ending series of scandals.
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Friday July 09, 2010

Cluster bombs banned for UK armed forces

BBC News

British armed forces are being banned from using cluster munitions under a law passed by the House of Commons.

The law comes after the UK in 2008 signed an international convention outlawing the weapons - which have maimed and killed thousands of people.
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Friday July 09, 2010

Psychic octopus Paul predicts Spain to beat Holland in World Cup final

Marcus Christenson
The Guardian

The octopus said to have psychic powers after predicting all of Germany's six World Cup games correctly, has had his say regarding the final in Johannesburg on Sunday – and it is good news for Spain.

The two-year-old cephalopod, called Paul and based at the Sea Life Aquarium in the western German city of Oberhausen, decided that Spain would win the final by going for the mussel in the box with a Spanish flag rather than the one with a Dutch flag on it.
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Friday July 09, 2010

Exercise 'won't cure child obesity'

Press Association

Scientists have questioned the assumption that a lack of exercise causes fatness in children.

The study suggests that physical inactivity appears to be the result of fatness, instead of its cause.

Researchers said the findings indicate that nutrition, rather than exercise, is the best way of tackling childhood obesity.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Earth's Atmosphere Came From Outer Space

Ehud Rattner
TFOT

A joint team of researchers, from the University of Manchester and the University of Houston, has discovered that the gases which formed the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans probably come from outer space. Their recently published report challenges traditional theories which claim that the gas spewed by ancient volcanoes created our atmosphere.

In their study, published in the journal Science and funded by Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the team of scientists offers a new theory.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Down and dirty with the Lib Dems

Mehdi Hasan
New Satesman

The Lib Dems have shown themselves to be adept at the manipulative and dark arts of British politics.

After every high is the inevitable comedown. The Lib Dems have slumped to 15 per cent in the latest polls. So much for political honeymoons. But let's not be under any illusions. To form a coalition is a messy and arduous affair, made more difficult still by a tribal political system that favours single-party (over multiparty) governments.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Warsaw Library Sprouts a House on a Tree

Andrew Michler
Inhabitat

Designboom points us to this quirky House on a Tree art installation, which recently sprung up at the University of Warsaw Library.

Designed by the Warsaw Art-curator Collective konarska-konarski the morphic public installation is intended to raise awareness of sustainable development and consists of one house set in a tree and another hovering within the library’s walls.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

High Above the Earth, Satellites Track Melting Ice

michael d. lemonick
e360

The surest sign of a warming Earth is the steady melting of its ice zones, from disappearing sea ice in the Arctic to shrinking glaciers worldwide. Now, scientists are using increasingly sophisticated satellite technology to measure the extent, thickness, and height of ice, assembling an essential picture of a planet in transition.

After carbon dioxide, the substance most crucial in determining how climate change will play out over the next century and beyond isn’t a greenhouse gas — it’s the solid state of the molecule H20.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Gaming the System: How Marketers Rig the Social Media Machine

Eliot Van Buskirk
Wired

Regular users of social networks generally collect friends and followers on a one-by-one basis, then use those connections to share their opinions and links to the latest “Double Rainbow” remix or whatever is making the rounds that day.

These systems are based on trust and loyalty, and as such, they present a massive opportunity to marketers who want to encourage those traits in their customers.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Ministers declare war on Britain's tranquilliser crisis

Brian Brady
Independent

Decades of over-prescribing by GPs of drugs such as Valium have created 1.5 million 'involuntary addicts'

Ministers are poised to demand a dramatic reduction in the millions of tranquillisers prescribed in the UK every year, amid growing concerns about the long-term effects on patients who become addicted to them.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Government to compensate torture victims as official inquiry launched

Richard Norton-Taylor and Ian Cobain
The Guardian

PM moves to ensure courts will no longer be able to disclose evidence about British complicity in torture

David Cameron today ordered an unprecedented inquiry into evidence and allegations of British complicity in the torture and abuse of terror suspects.

But he immediately moved to ensure the courts would no longer be able to disclose damning evidence which, he implied, could jeopardise intelligence sharing with the US.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Global Food Problems Are About Justice Not Scarcity

Frances Moore Lappe
YES! Magazine

We need to rescue our food system from corporate control.

In 1969, as I tried to grasp the root causes of hunger, I struggled to absorb the shocking picture my simple research was uncovering: While world food experts cried “scarcity,” in truth we bright humans were—and still are—creating hunger out of plenty. We’d turned our food system into a scarcity-creating machine, and were undermining the Earth’s food-producing potential, too.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Freelance Photographer: 'I Was Followed by BP Security and Then Detained by Police'

Lance Rosenfield
Pro Publica

Freelance photographer Lance Rosenfield was working on assignment for ProPublica in Texas City, Texas, last week, when a BP security guard began following him. Rosenfield was later detained by police after taking photos for two ProPublica stories. One revealed that BP’s Texas City refinery had illegally emitted 538,000 pounds of toxic chemicals into the air in April and May.

The other reported that the Texas City refinery continues to have serious safety violations five years after an explosion at the plant killed 15 workers.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

BT and Talk Talk seek judicial review on digital act

Maxwell Cooter
Techworld

Campaign against Digital Economy Act moves to courts

The campaign against the Digital Economy Act took a new turn with reports from the BBC that BT and Talk Talk are jointly mounting a legal challenge against the act.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

We're in a Recession Because the Rich Are Raking in an Absurd Portion of Wealth

Robert Reich
AlerNet

Our economy can't thrive when the richest 1% get an ever larger share of the nation's income and wealth, and everyone else's share shrinks.

Wall Street's banditry was the proximate cause of the Great Recession, not its underlying cause. Even if the Street is better controlled in the future (and I have my doubts), the structural reason for the Great Recession still haunts America. That reason is America's surging inequality.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

No anti-junk food laws, health secretary promises

Randeep Ramesh
The Guardian

Food and alcohol companies will fund government's healthy lifestyle ad campaign in exchange for a 'non-regulatory approach'

Beer companies, confectionary firms and crisp-makers will be asked to fund the government's advertising campaign to persuade people to switch to a healthier lifestyle and, in return, will not face new legislation outlawing excessively fatty, sugary and salty food, the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, announced today.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Ironing Is The Key To Wooing A Woman

Laura Holland
Express.co.uk

Forget chocolates and flowers. Doing the ironing is now the key to wooing a woman, according to a study.

Just under half the nation’s females said helping out around the house was the way to their hearts.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Europe puts limits on banker bonuses

Ben Quinn
Christian Science Monitor

The European Parliament passed a bill today that would cap and defer financial traders' and bankers' bonuses, giving Europe the toughest regimes in the world. The caps are a backlash against the global financial meltdown, and the bonuses that followed.

A crackdown on unlimited bonuses for bankers and financial traders was approved today by members of the European Parliament in a move that gives the 27-country European Union one of the world’s toughest regimes in the field.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Stage-Managing the War on Terror

Stephan Salisbury
Tomdispatch.com

Ensnaring Terrorists Demands Creativity

Informers have by now become our first line of defense in our battles with the evildoers, the go-to guys in the never-ending domestic war on terror. They regularly do the dirty work -- suggesting and encouraging the plots, laboring as bag men to move the money, fashioning the bombs, and eliciting the flamboyant dialogue, even while following the scripts of their handlers to the letter.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Don’t Let Goldman Sachs Off The Hook

Zach Carter
AlterNet

When the nation’s most prestigious investment banks found themselves on the verge of total annihilation in the fall of 2008, the most radical and effective government response was not the infamous $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The wildest salvation scheme for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and the securities system at large was a plan from the Federal Reserve to give these speculative institutions access to cheap loans from the central bank. It worked.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

New 3D displays use falling water drops as 'voxels'

Lewis Page
The Register

'We were actually trying to make better car headlights'

Robotics boffins in the States say they have developed a brilliant three-dimensional holographic projection system - ideal, for instance, for playing 3D Tetris - which is based on falling droplets of water.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

US investigators to gain access to Britons' bank accounts

Robert Verkaik
Independent

The personal bank accounts of British citizens will be made available to American investigators working on counter-terrorism cases when MEPs approve a request made by President Obama today.

The controversial deal raises serious concerns about the privacy rights of British and other EU citizens whose personal banking affairs are held on a giant database that covers the vast majority of bank-to-bank financial transactions across Europe.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Architecture’s Modern Marvels

Vanity fair

When V.F. asked 52 experts to choose the five most important works of architecture created since 1980, they named a staggering 132 different structures. Here are the top 21, in order of popularity.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Animals in Heat

Brian Palmer
Slate

Do squirrels and pigeons get all sweaty in hot weather?

An oppressive heat wave continues to punish the Northeast this week. Temperatures in New York City, Boston, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., all topped 100 degrees on Tuesday, as residents sagged and perspired. What about our urban animal friends—are pigeons and squirrels getting sweaty, too?
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Thursday July 08, 2010

The Return of the Giant Tortoise

Gonzalo Ortiz
Inter Press Service

The historic reintroduction of giant tortoises is under way on Pinta Island, where not a single one of the famous animals that gave their name to the Ecuadorian archipelago of Galápagos remained.

"The tortoises have adapted well to their new habitat and are moving in a radius of approximately 1.5 kilometres from the site where they were released," said biologist Washington Tapia, of Galápagos National Park, head of the experiment on Pinta Island, which has an area of 60 square km.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Exposed: The truth about Israel's land grab in the West Bank

Catrina Stewart
Independent

As President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet, a report reveals 42 per cent of territory is controlled by settlers

Jewish settlers, who claim a divine right to the whole of Israel, now control more than 42 per cent of the occupied West Bank, representing a powerful obstacle to the creation of a Palestinian state, a new report has revealed.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Robert N. Butler, 1927 – 2010: Visionary Psychiatrist and Champion of Elders

Unsilent Generation

If you’re like most people, you may find that at about age 70, life begins to close in on you. You’re supposed to be retired by then with an adequate pension and/or a 401K–only you don’t have a pension, your 401K went down in the big recession, and to tell the truth, you don’t want to retire anyway.

You want to work, but there the job market is tight, age discrimination is rampant, and thanks to the Supreme Court, there’s virtually no way to fight it. You don’t have the money, or maybe the nerve, to strike out on your own, unless you call flipping burgers striking out on your own.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Retailers stop sales of analogue TV sets as digital switchover approaches

Tara Conlan
The Guardian

Death of the analogue TV set officially confirmed today nearly 85 years after John Logie Baird held his first public display

The death of the analogue television set was officially confirmed today, nearly 85 years after John Logie Baird held his first public display of the capabilities of the box in the corner of the living room that has tranformed our lives.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Soda Ban in Effect San Francisco City Vending Machines

Jack Phillips
Epoch Times

San Francisco has officially taken out sugary drinks and replaced them with soy milk, rice milk, and certain diet sodas in vending machines on city property.

Mayor Gavin Newsom made the executive order several months ago but the order didn't take into effect until this week, reported the San Francisco Chronicle.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

'When Is a Life Form Worthy of Life?'

Spiegel Online

Many worry that screening embryos pre-implantation, during fertility treatments, opens the door to gender selection and designer babies. But a German court on Tuesday decided to allow the practice. Commentators say that the ruling throws up more questions about genetic selection than answers.

The case before Germany's Federal Court of Justice on Tuesday was anything but straightforward.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Superpowered energy-storing wonder stuff created in lab

Lewis Page
The Register

Future exploding laptop battery = nuclear bomb going off

US-based boffins say they have created a never-seen-before type of ultra-bizarre stuff in the lab by using incredible pressures similar to those found deep inside planets. The scientists believe that their creation is capable of storing an unfeasible amount of energy.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Tony and the Shah of Palestine

Yvonne Ridley
Counterpunch

Ever since a group of ordinary people from more than 40 different countries came together and set sail for Gaza have we seen various world leaders scramble to persuade Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza.

Why? To honour the memory of those martyred by Israeli soldiers who shot nine unarmed peace activists at virtually point-blank range? Hell no!
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Thursday July 08, 2010

It's not just BP's oil in the Gulf that threatens world's oceans

Les Blumenthal
McClatchy

A sobering new report warns that the oceans face a "fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation" not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Workers in China grasp the power of the strike

Jonathan Watts
The Observer

A spectre of labour unrest is haunting the country – and it terrifies the ruling Communist party

Zhang Liwen found out that she was about to go on strike over a breakfast of steamed buns and congee rice porridge at her factory dormitory. Fifteen minutes later, she was taking part in industrial action for the first time in her life.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

THEY THINK IT'S ALL OVER... ITT IS NOW!!!

Schnews

“It’s a real victory for the anti-war movement, The jury were presented with the facts and they supported our motivations. If people in Britain knew the truth away from media manipulations they would all support our actions” - Ornella Sabeine, EDO Decommissioner.

After a nail-biting twenty-four hour hiatus, the jury came to decision on the Decommissioners Case (see SchNEWS 721 ) - 100% Not Guilty! Six of the seven defendants Tom Woodhead, Bob Nicholls, Ornella Saibene, Harvey Tadman, Simon Levin and Chris Osmond came smiling out of Hove Trial Centre at the end of a gruelling three and half week trial.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

The legacy of 'jaws' that has bitten the dust

Guy Adams
Independent

Summer blockbusters began 35 years ago with the Steven Spielberg classic. Now the phenomenon is over

It's been 35 years, but people are still scared to get into the water.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

Facebook app may spread spam and malware

Jeremy Kirk
Techworld

I will NEVER text again app attracts nearly 300,000 fans

A suspicious application circulating on Facebook has attracted nearly 300,000 fans whose profiles could be used as launching pads for spam, according to a security analyst.
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Thursday July 08, 2010

The G20: Grim Lessons for Civil Liberties

Thomas Walkom
The Toronto Star

Two things stand out from the street riots and subsequent police actions that swept downtown Toronto last weekend.

The first is the state blatantly abused its powers. Summits legitimately require security; but in this one, governments went over the top.

The federal government transformed the city's downtown into a no-go zone.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

Big Bang Big Boom

Blu
Comment Factory

Ever wonder where the fuck your life is going?
Watch this:
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

Incredible shrinking proton raises eyebrows

Kate McAlpine
New Scientist

How big is a proton? The most accurate measurement yet suggests it's smaller than we thought. This could be due to an error – or it might just hint at totally new particle physics.

"The new experiment presents a puzzle with no obvious candidate for an explanation," says Peter Mohr of the international Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA), which calculates values for fundamental constants in physics, who was not involved in the new work.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

Ocean Acidification Gives Young Fish a Death Wish

Brandon Keim
Wired

Changing ocean chemistry could turn some fish species into easy meals, with senses of smell so scrambled they’re actually attracted to their predators.

Researchers discovered the potentially deadly problem through a series of experiments on common reef-dwelling fish that were raised in seawater with acidity levels resembling what’s expected by the century’s middle and end.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

Apple ads to target your iTunes history

Rik Myslewski
The Register

Jobs knows what you want

Apple is using the immense amount of data that it has collected from its 150 million iTunes accounts to help its iAd advertisers target their pitches to users of iOS 4 devices.

"Apple knows what you've downloaded, how much time you spend interacting with applications and knows even what you've downloaded, don't like and deleted,” iCrossing head mobile marketeer Rachel Pasqua is reported to have said on Apple's iAd data leveraging here.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

Alvin Greene: America's most unlikely politician

Ed Pilkington
The Guardian

Last month, an unknown, unemployed former soldier astonished America by becoming the Democratic nominee for South Carolina's upcoming senate election. How on earth did he do it?

The journey to the home of one of the most enigmatic figures to emerge into the American political scene involves a drive deep into rural South Carolina. The road, bullet straight and lined with tall firs and pines, continues for miles with only an occasional Jehovah's Witnesses church to break the monotony.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

A Maxim a Day Keeps Bad Feelings Away

Tom Jacobs
Miller-McCune

Proverbial sayings such as “we’re all human” reduce feelings of regret and hypocrisy after men get into trouble. But new research finds they don’t have the same soothing effect on women.

Hey, nobody’s perfect, right? After all, you live and learn. Everybody makes mistakes, and it’s well known that experience is the best teacher.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

Food for the Joints

Louise McCoy
Epoch Times

Reading about a Japanese village where the inhabitants live into their 90s with their faculties intact, youthful skin, eyes, and joints, I was intrigued.

How do they do that? The source was a mailer for a company marketing a pill with a “secret” ingredient—the one that makes it possible for these Japanese to work hours in their fields into their 90s and have joints as flexible as those of youth.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

Alleged Military Whistleblower Charged With Leaking Video of a US Attack on Civilians and Secret Documents

Mike Ludwig
t r u t h o u t

A US Army intelligence analyst was charged on Monday with eight violations of federal criminal law for leaking confidential military documents and videos, including a 2007 video of US attack helicopter brutally murdering civilians and journalists in Baghdad that was leaked to controversial whistleblower site Wikileaks.com.

Pfc. Bradley Manning, 22, allegedly transferred classified information onto his computer, abused access to a secret military information network and transferred the helicopter attack video and 50 classified cables to a third party, a violation of the US Espionage Act, according to www.Wired.com, one of the first sites to post Manning's charges.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

BP aims to raise $9bn from sale of South American assets to China

Terry Macalister
The Guardian

China looks poised to help bail out BP by buying up to $9bn (£6bn) worth of energy assets in South America, raising vital money for the British oil company to pay bills from environmental liabilities in the Gulf of Mexico.

Russian management of the TNK-BP joint venture, based in Moscow, has also said that it would like to buy more assets from the beleaguered company in other parts of the world.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

Credit agencies lined up to pinpoint benefit cheats

Nigel Morris
Independent

Use of private financial data attacked as a 'recipe for snooping'

Credit agencies have been called in by ministers hunting for massive savings in government spending to help slash Britain's £3bn benefit fraud bill.

A nationwide clampdown on bogus housing benefit claims will be launched this year using techniques borrowed from the private sector for assessing creditworthiness.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

Tories’ attack on Jamie Oliver reflects conservative parenting styles

Tom Laskawy
Grist

From the international edition of the "Why Elections Matter" handbook comes news that chef and school-food activist Jamie Oliver's well-regarded and successful set of school food reforms are being dissed by Britain's new Tory health minister.

Oliver has spent years on the program, which has improved school menus, kids' eating habits and, according to studies, student performance.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

EU to cap mobile roaming charges at €50

Carrie-Ann Skinner
PC Advisor

New legislation cuts data charges

An EU regulation that will see mobile phone owners having their bill capped at €50 (£41) when using data abroad, came into force last week.
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Wednesday July 07, 2010

Freedom in the Grace of the World

Chris Hedges
Truthdig

Earl Shaffer, adrift after serving in the South Pacific in World War II and struggling with the loss of his childhood friend Walter Winemiller during the assault on Iwo Jima, made his way to Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia in 1947.

He headed north toward Mount Katahdin in Maine and for the next 124 days, averaging 16.5 miles a day, beat back the demons of war.
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Tuesday July 06, 2010

McDonald’s Facing Potential Lawsuit for Luring Kids With Happy Meal Toys

michelesimon
AlterNet

It was only a matter of time. Last month, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) served McDonald’s with a notice of its intent to sue if the fast food giant continues to use toys to promote Happy Meals. (An “intent to sue” letter is a prerequisite to filing a lawsuit in some states.)

The basis for the potential case is that using toys to market to small children is unfair and deceptive under the consumer protection laws in a number of states.
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Tuesday July 06, 2010

Gigantic jaws of ancient whale could bring down Moby Dick

Steve Connor
Independent

It had the biggest bite of any whale and were it not for the fact that it went extinct millions of years before the fabled Moby Dick, there is little doubt that it would have made Captain Ahab turn in his watery grave.

The fossilised remains of an extinct sperm whale with teeth each more than a foot long has been unearthed in Peru by scientists who believe the great predator ate other whales to survive.
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Tuesday July 06, 2010

Flying cars to appear in 2011

Sharon Gaudin
Computerworld US

Terrafugia delivers first flying car

A Massachusetts company hopes to start delivering its flying car to customers by late 2011.
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Tuesday July 06, 2010

Burqa bans spread across Catalonia

Giles Tremlett
The Guardian

Latest move leaves women wearing face-covering veils in Lleida public buildings facing fines of up to €600

There are no burqas on the streets of Tarrés. In fact, there are no Muslims at all in this village of 108 inhabitants in north-east Spain. But that will not stop the parish council debating whether to ban burqas and face-covering niqabs from parts of the village next week.
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Tuesday July 06, 2010

Facing the Future as a Media Felon on the Gulf Coast

rossini
Fubar and Grill

Georgianne Nienaber
Haiti relief worker, investigative journalist, author

The United States Coast Guard considers me a felon now, because I "willfully" want to obtain more photos like these to show you the utter devastation occurring in Barataria Bay, Louisiana as a result of the BP oil catastrophe.

If the Coast Guard has its way, all media, not just independent writers and photographers like myself and Jerry Moran, will be fined $40,000 and receive Class D felony convictions for providing the truth about oiled birds and dolphins, in addition to broken, filthy, unmanned boom material that is trapping oil in the marshlands and estuaries.
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Coast Guard Restricts Reporters' Access to Oil Spill Sites
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Tuesday July 06, 2010

BP Wasted No Time Preparing for Gulf Disaster Lawsuits

Marc Caputo
McClatchy Newspapers

In the immediate aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, BP publicly touted its expert oil clean-up response, but it quietly girded for a legal fight that could soon embroil hundreds of attorneys, span five states and last more than a decade.

BP swiftly signed up experts who otherwise would work for plaintiffs.
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Tuesday July 06, 2010

Hundreds of Apple customers fall victim to hacker in app scam

Kevin Rawlinson
Independent

If Apple didn't notice that 41 of its 50 top-rated e-books in the US were in Vietnamese and the work of the same, unknown publisher, then alarm bells should have sounded when customer reviews talked not of ripping yarns, but of online scams.

Nevertheless, Apple was struggling to explain last night how hundreds of its customers had apparently become victims of a scam in which a phantom developer, named Thuat Nguyen, hacked into their accounts and used them to artificially inflate the ratings and sales for his book applications, or apps.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Why you should never arm wrestle a saber-toothed tiger

Physorg.com

Saber-toothed cats may be best known for their supersized canines, but they also had exceptionally strong forelimbs for pinning prey before delivering the fatal bite, says a new study in the journal PLoS ONE.

Commonly called the "saber-toothed tiger," the extinct cat Smilodon fatalis roamed North and South America until 10,000 years ago, preying on large mammals such as bison, camels, mastodons and mammoths.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

1970 vs 2010: 40 years when we got older, richer and fatter

Michael McCarthy
Independent

You smoked heavily. You missed out on university. You didn't take foreign holidays. You didn't have a car. You had a job in a factory. And you were likely to die at 68.

It sounds like a pretty grim picture nowadays, but hold on a minute. That was probably you – at least if you were a man – 40 years ago.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

BP Is Only the Latest Killer of the Gulf

Max Ajl
t r u t h o u t

The news from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe keeps on worsening. First, we heard about a piddling 1,000 barrels per day. That number was from the Coast Guard.

Then, there was a quick rise upward to 5,000 barrels daily. Then, rumors suggested about 12,000 to 19,000 barrels per day was more likely.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

The Poverty Solution: Cash

Melinda Burns
Miller-McCune.com

A new book, “Just Give Money to the Poor,” says the poor will spend the cash wisely and boost the economy, too.

Back in the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth, English lawmakers said it was the government and taxpayers. They introduced the compulsory “poor tax” of 1572 to provide peasants with cash and a “parish loaf.”
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Has the American Dream Become Our Nightmare?

Mary Sykes Wylie
Psychotherapy Networker

The time is ripe for us to rethink some of our deepest beliefs about the way this country should work, and how we should live our lives.

For much of our history, we haven't felt any need to negotiate our national faith in unlimited upward mobility. To the great American middle class, the path forward and upward to economic comfort and security was clear, dependable, beautifully simple: you went to work every day, earned a little more money every year, saved what you could, and didn't radically overspend.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Biggest thing in farming for 10,000 years on horizon'

Lewis Page
The Register

Dirtboffins argue for lawn-style perennial grainfields

Agro-boffins in America say that mankind could be on the verge of the "biggest agricultural breakthrough in 10,000 years", as researchers close in on "perennial grains".

At the moment, most grain grown around the world has to be replanted after every crop.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Poverty tsar: shirking fathers should lose their benefits

Patrick Wintour
The Guardian

Welfare debate should shift from obsession with single mothers, says Labour MP Frank Field

Britain must end its obsession with getting young single mothers into work, and focus on young, unemployed fathers whose historic role as the family breadwinner has had to be taken over by the taxpayer, Frank Field, David Cameron's poverty adviser, has said.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Ken Clarke plans radical reform of the prison system

Andrew Woodcock and Lucy Bogustawski
Press Association

Fewer offenders could be locked up in prison and more given community sentences under reforms of the criminal justice system being planned by the Government, Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke indicated today.

In a speech, Mr Clarke described the 85,000 prison population in England and Wales as "astonishing" and question whether it delivers value for money for taxpayers.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

For Women, Biological Clock Is an Aphrodisiac

Tom Jacobs
Miller-McCune.com

New research suggests women think more about sex, and engage in intercourse more frequently, as their fertility declines.

According to conventional wisdom, men have sex on the brain from puberty until, roughly, death. The Kinsey Institute, which uses somewhat more refined measurements, reports 54 percent of men think about sex every day or several times a day. It adds this is true of only 19 percent of women, making for quite a gender gap.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Google steals Chrome ideas from Firefox

Gregg Keizer
Computerworld US

Chrome browser to check for updated plug-ins

Google will take a page from Mozilla's playbook and block outdated plug-ins from launching, part of new efforts to keep Chrome users safer, the company said Monday.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

School crossing ladies with cameras in their lollipops

Daily Mail

Lollipop ladies have a new weapon against drivers who fail to stop at school crossings - secret cameras hidden in their sticks.

The cameras, installed in a black strip on the pole, film for 19 seconds when the stop sign is raised vertically.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

How Cocaine Works in the Addict's Brain

Joe Kloc
Mother Jones

For a long time scientists thought that drug addiction was distinctly human behavior. Then researchers discovered that rats can form addictions, too.

Aside from being just one more reminder of how frighteningly similar we are to our lab companions, this finding offered scientists a chance to study how addiction actually works. Why is it that only some drug users spiral into addictive behavior?
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Stem-cell work closes a door to AIDS virus

Physorg.vom

Lab work on mice has opened up a novel way of closing a gateway to the AIDS virus, according to a study published on Friday.

The doorway in question is called CCR5, a protein that helps the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) penetrate a cell, its first step before hijacking the cellular machinery and reproducing itself.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Tyranny of the Merchant Class

Ralph Nader
Counterpunch

There is a reason why, so many centuries ago, every major religion warned its adherents not to give too much power to the “merchant class.”

That reason is still here – the commercial drive knows few self-imposed boundaries, especially when it resides in large corporations.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Coral: Lost at sea?

Olivia Durkin
Independent

Coral reefs support a quarter of the world's marine life, but rising ocean temperatures are killing them. The impact of their decline could be huge, says marine biologist Olivia Durkin

A a result of rising sea temperatures, we are seeing the degradation and eventual destruction of one of the most beautiful ecosystems on Earth.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Turning Water into Hydrogen Fuel

Ehud Rattner
TFOT

Materials scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently announced a new way to harvest small amounts of waste energy, thus harnessing it to turn water into usable hydrogen fuel. The new process provides many benefits including simplicity, efficiency, and the ability to recycle otherwise-wasted energy into a useable form.

Huifang Xu, geologist and crystal specialist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison led the team of researchers on this project. During their study, which was published March 2 in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, they grew nanocrystals of two common crystals, zinc oxide and barium titanate.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

UN report calls for world to ditch dollar, migrate to new global currency

Reuters

A new United Nations report released on Tuesday calls for abandoning the U.S. dollar as the main global reserve currency, saying it has been unable to safeguard value.

But several European officials attending a high-level meeting of the U.N. Economic and Social Council countered by saying that the market, not politicians, would determine what currencies countries would keep on hand for reserves.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Why Do Murderers Get Mailbags Full of Love Letters and Marriage Proposals?

Anneli Rufus
AlterNet

Murder suspect Joran van der Sloot has been bragging about receiving a deluge of attention from women since confessing to the murder of Stephany Flores. What gives?

Murder suspect Joran van der Sloot says women are begging to bed him. He bragged to reporters this week about receiving love letters and marriage proposals since confessing to the murder of Stephany Flores, whose battered corpse was found in the young Dutchman's Lima hotel room on June 2
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Saturday July 03, 2010

An acid trip no one wants to go on

Caroline Ash
New Statesman

In 1910, Dr Crippen, an American homoeopathic physician living in London, attempted to dispose of the remains of his wife, Cora, by dissolving her torso in a bath of acid. It might be hard to imagine, but the world's ocean is turning into a warm acid bath because of excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide gas not only creates a greenhouse effect but also dissolves in seawater to form carbonic acid. Fortunately for humankind, the capacity of the sea to absorb the gas has offset the problem of warming from fossil-fuel emissions.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Pot Versus Alcohol: Experts Say Booze Is the Bigger Danger

Paul Armentano
AlterNet

For more than three decades, America's marijuana policies have been based upon rhetoric. Perhaps it's time to begin listening to what the experts have to say.

Speaking privately with Richard Nixon in 1971, the late Art Linkletter offered this view on the use of marijuana versus alcohol. "When people smoke marijuana, they smoke it to get high. In every case, when most people drink, they drink to be sociable."
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Saturday July 03, 2010

BMW Reveals First Details About Its Electric Car

Ariel Schwartz
Inhabitat

Luxury car fans, start your engines — BMW’s very first electric vehicle is on its way.

The Megacity Vehicle, set to be released in 2013, is made out of lightweight carbon fiber and aluminum and will be built from the ground up using the company’s “LifeDrive structure”, which is reportedly as strong as steel but 50% lighter than standard aluminum. In comparison, many other automakers base electric models on already-available gasoline-powered vehicles.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Genetic Secrets of Living to 100

Brandon Keim
Wired

A massive genetic study of people who lived for more than 100 years has found dozens of new clues to the biology of aging.

The findings won’t be turned overnight into longevity elixirs or lifespan tests, nor do they untangle the complex interactions between biology, lifestyle and environment that ultimately determine how long — and how well — one lives.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Natural Gas as Panacea: Dubious Path to a Green Future

Daniel B. Botkin
e360

Many energy experts contend natural gas is the ideal fuel as the world makes the transition to renewable energy. But since much of that gas will come from underground shale, potentially at high environmental cost, it would be far better to skip the natural gas phase and move straight to massive deployment of solar and wind power.

For several years, many voices, including Texas energy baron T. Boone Pickens, have been touting natural gas as the best energy source to form a bridge between the current fossil-fuel economy and a renewable energy future.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

US to Deploy Interceptors to Poland

Andrey Volkov
Epoch Times

The United States will deliver SM-3 interceptor missiles to Poland between 2015 and 2018 as part of NATO’s plan to defend its allies in Europe from possible threats from Iran, said Polish defense ministry spokesman Janusz Sejmej on Thursday.

The interceptors offer defense against medium- and long-range ballistic missiles.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Taking the petro out of petrochemicals

Todd Woody
Grist

You can buy green jeans, green greens (at the farmer's market), and green beer. But the reality is that many, if not most, products in our industrial society contain some petroleum-based chemicals.

In fact, up to a quarter of the oil consumed in some regions of the United States -- such as on the Gulf Coast -- goes into petrochemical production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Turkey bans Israeli military flight from its airspace as freeze deepens

Ian Black
The Guardian

Move represents further escalation of crisis between countries since Gaza flotilla incident in May

Turkey has banned an Israeli military flight from its airspace in apparent retaliation for Israel's interception of the Free Gaza flotilla last month, in which nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists were killed.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Protected diplomats 'committed serious offences'

Kim Sengupta
Independent

Staff from foreign embassies in Britain have escaped prosecution despite allegedly committing a range of offences including human trafficking, sexual assault, threats to kill and drinking and driving.

Foreign Secretary William Hague said that a number of diplomats were responsible for “serious offences” which could carry a prison sentence of one year or more, but had escaped charges because of diplomatic immunity
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Finland makes 1Mbps broadband access a legal right for residents

Carrie-Ann Skinner
PC Advisor

Country become first in world to pass minimum speed law

Every resident in Finland has a legal right to 1Mbps broadband access from today.

Under a new law passed by the country's government telecommunications companies will be obliged to provide every person in Finland with access to a 1Mb broadband connection starting in July.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

'Huge airships to carry freight starting 10 years from now'

Lewis Page
The Register

Ex UK.gov top boffin's amazing claim

The long-touted idea of using airships to replace cargo aircraft is in the news again, courtesy of former head government boffin Professor Sir David King, who says "this is something I believe is going to happen".
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Saturday July 03, 2010

How plants get by when pollinators vanish

Catherine Brahic
New Scientist

Pity the birds and the bees: disease, climate change and the human urge to pillage our environment mean they are in decline around the world.

So what about the plants that rely on them to spread their seed? A rare "live" study looking at what happens when you deprive plants of pollinators shows that evolution can step in to help them cope. But don't get the champagne out just yet.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

iPhone 4 business users get remote data wiping

John E Dunn
Techworld

Plus patching, imaging and resets

Businesses worried about keeping tabs on the latest Apple iPhone will soon be able to remotely interact with the devices in the event of theft, loss or mishap, Absolute Software has announced.

Using a update due in the next quarter, Absolute Software will enable Apple iPhones running iOS 4 to be remotely managed like any other portable computer using the company's Absolute Manage system, the company said.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

The High Price We Pay for Treating a Good Night's Sleep Like It's Optional

Mary Sykes Wylie
Psychotherapy Networker

The definition of insomnia is so broad it's hard to pin down -- almost inane. What is certain is sleep deprivation's affect on the body and psyche.

It's 3:00 a.m. Your eyes suddenly snap wide open and stare unblinking into the darkness. You try to remember the dream you were having, but it's gone, and anyway you're now as tightly tuned as a bowstring to the mysterious night noises of your house—pings, drips, rustles, hums, creaks—that send little electrical jolts zinging unpleasantly through your nervous system.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Is Someone Spying On Your Cell-Phone Calls?

Jessica Ramirez
Newsweek

How suspicious spouses, protective parents, and concerned companies are turning to cheap and hard-to-detect commerical spyware apps to monitor your mobile communications.

Sometime in early 2007, Richard Mislan, an assistant professor of cyberforensics at Purdue University, started getting phone calls and e-mails from people around the world—all looking for help with the same problem. “They thought someone was listening in on their cell-phone calls,” he says. “They wanted to know what they could do to confirm it was happening.”
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Drugsters in Academia: How Big Pharma “Educates” American Doctors

Unsilent Generation

The pharmaceutical industry has wormed its way into the hearts and minds of the medical professions in any number of ways—wining and dining doctors, sending them off to vacation in splendid spas, and even buying their names to put on industry-written articles promoting different drugs.

One little known facet of this drugster-doctor relationship is Big Pharma’s role in continuing medical education (CME) programs, which are important in keeping medical professionals informed and up to date on the fast developing profession.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Parliament peace protest gets reprieve on eviction

Cathy Gordon
Independent

Peace campaigners facing eviction from Parliament Square were yesterday handed a last-minute reprieve by a Court of Appeal judge.

Lady Justice Smith granted a temporary stay on orders won on Tuesday by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, after the campaigners lodged their applications for leave to appeal ahead of a 4pm deadline.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Inside Torontanamo

Matt Shultz
Counterpunch

My Experience Inside the G20 Detention Facility

Well, it's been an interesting weekend, for everyone I expect but for me it has been, well, cataclysmic ... almost literally, given the torrential rain (look up the Greek etymology of cataclysm.)

As I write this the protests continue but for me they are done: an embarrassingly stillborn and somewhat childish prank has me facing weapons charges with a potential six month jail term, and banned from any future protests due to the bail conditions that I agreed to in order to get released, despite the obvious charter violations represented in an order to avoid any public demonstration.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Wikileaks Founder Assange Gives a Hint on ‘Orwellian’ Bombshell

Grant Lawrence

There has been a lot of speculation regarding what Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is going to release next. The information is said to be so explosive that Assange was hiding out and the Pentagon was looking for him.

Some like the Pentagon Papers’ leaker Daniel Ellsberg have issued warnings that Assange’s life may be in danger. The Pentagon, it has been reported, was looking to question Assange.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Water Trickles Back into Village, Thanks to Solar Desalination

Zofeen Ebrahim
Inter Press Service

Ismail Achar never thought a day would come when his island village would be reduced to a barren tract of land with hardly a drop of water to drink.

After all, his village, Jat Mohammad, is situated along the Indus delta in Sindh province in south-eastern Pakistan, which is considered one of the longest rivers in the world.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Kucinich: ‘We are losing our nation to lies about the necessity of war’

Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story

In Afghanistan, corruption is rife. It is so abundant, in fact, that a senior US lawmaker declared on Monday that she'd be freezing $3.9 billion in Afghan aid dollars until the situation is addressed.

Rep. Nita Lowey's declaration of principle was made in response to a Wall Street Journal report that claimed over $3 billion has been legally shipped through the airport in Kabul over just the last three years, leading investigators to believe much of it comes from U.S. aid dollars being diverted by corrupt officials.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

How to Get Politicians to Admit in Public That the Drug War Has Been a Complete Failure

Sanho Tree
AlterNet

We do not need yet another blue ribbon commission or academic study to tell us our current policies are not working.

Today is the UN’s World Anti-Drug Day. China usually celebrates the day with mass executions and officials in other countries will trot out the usual speeches about the need to continue the war on drugs with ever greater determination.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Goldman Can't Say How Much It Made From Housing Crash

Greg Gordon
McClatchy

A congressional commission pressed Goldman Sachs executives Wednesday to spell out how much their company has earned from its exotic bets against the housing market, including $20 billion in wagers that helped force a $162 billion taxpayer bailout of the American International Group.

However, Goldman's president and chief risk officer told members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission that their company never breaks out its figures that way.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Peace campaigner, 85, classified by police as 'domestic extremist'

Paul Lewis and Rob Evans
The Guardian

John Catt and his daughter were placed under surveillance at more than 80 lawful protests

For John Catt, protest has never been about chaining himself to a railing or blocking a road in an act of civil disobedience. The 85-year-old peace campaigner's far milder form of dissent typically involves turning up at a demonstration with his daughter, Linda, taking out his sketch pad and drawing the scene.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Will a “Jewish Flotilla” Break the Gaza Blockade?

Joshua Holland
AlterNet

Interesting …

A coalition of international Jewish organizations sympathetic to the Palestinians will send a flotilla to Gaza to try to break Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-run strip.

The “Jewish Boat to Gaza” will sail next month from an undisclosed location carrying passengers from the United States, Germany and Britain. At least one passenger is reported to be a Holocaust survivor.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

White House releases national digital ID plan for comment

Grant Gross
Techworld

Online identity system to make transactions more secure and convenient

The White House is seeking comment on a draft plan for establishing a trusted identity system online, with the goal of making Internet transactions more secure and convenient.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

The great American corporate takeover

Alistair Dawber
Independent

American companies are preparing to launch daring takeover bids for a host of Britain's biggest corporate names – including BAE Systems and AstraZeneca – thanks to the weakness of the pound against the dollar.

Sterling has lost about a quarter of its value against the dollar in the last two-and-a-half years, and combined with the feeble recovery in the UK economy, British firms have become much cheaper for American suitors looking for a good deal.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

American Psychosis

Chris Hedges
Adbusters

What happens to a society that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion?

The United States, locked in the kind of twilight disconnect that grips dying empires, is a country entranced by illusions. It spends its emotional and intellectual energy on the trivial and the absurd. It is captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble.

This celebrity culture giddily licenses a dark voyeurism into other people’s humiliation, pain, weakness and betrayal.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

Chimps with everything: Jane Goodall's 50 years in the jungle

Robin McKie
The Observer

Through detailed observations of Tanzanian apes, Jane Goodall revolutionised our knowledge of chimpanzee behaviour

Fifty years ago, a slender young Englishwoman was walking through a rainforest reserve at Gombe, in Tanzania, when she came across a dark figure hunched over a termite nest. A large male chimpanzee was foraging for food.
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Saturday July 03, 2010

G20 summit drops clean-energy pledge

dpa
Earth Times

The leaders of the world's 20 most powerful developed and developing states (G20) on Sunday dropped a pledge to invest in climate-friendly energy generation from their final summit statement.

Climate change topped the world agenda last year, but was eclipsed after the relative failure of a massive summit in Copenhagen in December.
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Friday July 02, 2010

Revealed: How 'zero-grazing' is set to bring US-style factory farming to Britain

Martin Hickman
Independent

Plans to rear thousands of pigs and cows in huge new industrial units condemned by animal welfare charities

A battle is under way in the British countryside to fight off plans for massive factory farms that would house thousands of animals in industrialised units without access to traditional grazing or foraging.
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Friday July 02, 2010

Brazilian banker's crypto baffles FBI

John Leyden
The Register

18 months of failure

Cryptographic locks guarding the secret files of a Brazilian banker suspected of financial crimes have defeated law enforcement officials.

Brazilian police seized five hard drives when they raided the Rio apartment of banker Daniel Dantas as part of Operation Satyagraha in July 2008.
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Friday July 02, 2010

Battle for the Nile as rivals lay claim to Africa's great river

Xan Rice
The Guardian

With crises of population and resources upstream, there is now deadlock over who owns the Nile

Simon Kitra's back garden looks out over the world's second-largest freshwater lake. His front lawn opens onto the world's longest river. If the 20-year-old Ugandan fisherman needs reminding of where his tiny island is, he can look up to the pink obelisk on the hillside, marking where the British explorer John Hanning Speke, sextant in hand, stood in 1862 to ascertain the point where Lake Victoria begins to empty — the source of the Nile.
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Friday July 02, 2010

Abuse Loosens Church’s Culture of Silence in Italy

Rachel Donadio
The New York Times

One afternoon last month, a rare thing happened in Rome’s main courthouse: for perhaps the first time ever, an Italian bishop took the witness stand in the case of a priest accused of the sexual abuse of children.

Soon after, another rare thing happened. The leader of the Italian bishops’ conference acknowledged at a news conference that it was “possible” that bishops in Italy had covered up abuse, while his deputy said that in the past decade, 100 Italian priests had faced church trials in connection with the sexual abuse of minors.
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Thursday July 01, 2010

Germany Cracks Down on Chinese Regime’s Spying

Gisela Sommer
Epoch Times

An espionage incident only weeks prior to chancellor Angela Merkel’s planned China visit may be threatening the bilateral relations between Berlin and Beijing said German news magazine Spiegel Online in a June 26 article.

Just days earlier, China’s intelligence gathering activities were prominently highlighted in a report issued by Germany’s Ministry of the Interior.
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Thursday July 01, 2010

Racist violence migrates to the country

Jerome Taylor
independent

Racism and xenophobic violence is flourishing in towns and villages across Britain – while inner city areas that were once hotbeds of racial violence are now more "at ease" with diversity, according to a new report.

Researchers at the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) analysed 660 racist attacks across Britain last year and found growing evidence to suggest that violence against minorities has shifted to rural areas and towns.
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Thursday July 01, 2010

BP's Methane Monster: From the Gulf to the Globe

Craig Collins, Ph.D.
t r u t h o u t

We hear a lot of talk about carbon dioxide as the most dangerous climate culprit. And we should. So far, loading the atmosphere with CO2 is the single biggest cause of climate disruption. But, in the final analysis, methane may prove to be the most deadly of all greenhouse gases.

Unlike CO2, methane is flammable.
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Thursday July 01, 2010

Internet pornography to get its own red light district as .xxx name approved

Charles Arthur
The Guardian

Icann decision marks end of 10-year battle, but pornography companies fear US politicians will shunt them into web ghetto

New domain means legal pornography sites can be found in a single grouping. Photograph: AP
The internet could soon have its own red light district after the ".xxx" suffix was approved – though pornography companies are not keen to use it.
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Thursday July 01, 2010

Monsanto, Big Brother of the New World Agricultural Order: An Interview With Marie-Monique Robin

Mickey Z.
t r u t h o u t

Award-winning French journalist and filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin is the author of "The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption and the Control of Our Food Supply" (The New Press) and the creator of the film by the same name.

In a review of these two projects, Leslie Thatcher writes: "What Marie-Monique Robin most effectively documents are the perverse effects - the moral, social, technological, economic and market failures - of Western society's economic organization, most specifically with respect to science and the products of science and, ultimately, with respect to the preservation of the public commons and human life on the planet."
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Thursday July 01, 2010

Militarizing the Gulf Oil Crisis

Anne McClintock
Counterpunch

In the Gulf, the forever spill has become the forever war. A calamity of untold magnitude is unfolding and, alongside it, a strange militarization has emerged, as the language for managing the crisis becomes the language of war.

War-talk is firing from the mouths of local officials, TV pundits, the Coast Guard and journalists. Campaigning frantically to protect Louisiana, Governor Bobby Jindal urges the TV cameras: “We need to see that this is a war….a war to save Louisiana…a war to protect our way of life.”
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Thursday July 01, 2010

Jamie Oliver health approach 'doesn't work', says Health Secretary

Andy McSmith
Independent

Jamie Oliver’s highly publicised campaign to get school children eating health food has lost its government backing.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, has said that the celebrity chef’s insistence on serving healthy food in school dining rooms had had the perverse effect of sending school children out to the shops during the lunch break to buy junk food.
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Thursday July 01, 2010

Olivier Stone: The US Has Launched Military Interventions and Political Coups Fifty-Five Times in Latin America

Robert Greenwald
Brave New Conversations

The critically-acclaimed director discusses his upcoming documentary, "South of the Border."

Critically-acclaimed Hollywood Director Oliver Stone dropped by our studio for a Brave New Conversation, where I spoke with him about his latest documentary South of the Border, scheduled to be released in more than 30 countries this month.

South of the Border begins by exploring the role that the corporate-owned mainstream media in the U.S. and Venezuela have played in shaping American's perspectives on South America, beginning with clips of the attempted coup on Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
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Thursday July 01, 2010

First hurricane of season hits BP oil spill clean-up

Adam Gabbatt
The Guardian

Hurricane Alex halts efforts to capture oil from Gulf of Mexico as experts predict severe storm season ahead

Hurricane Alex, upgraded from tropical storm status late last night and expected to hit the coasts of Mexico and Texas later today, is expected to interrupt the company's efforts for several days to come.
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